Everyone knows cancer is one of the toughest fights anyone can face. Struggling with gruelling treatment and dealing with the emotional impact of a diagnosis is difficult enough. What many people don't realise is that cancer is an expensive disease.

Recognizing that we all have something to teach and something to learn - in line with the spirit of World Health Day - will be crucial for success in the changing dynamics of the new healthcare paradigm.

For years of life lost due to premature mortality, in comparison with the European average, the UK does worse in 2010 in ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory infections, breast cancer, other cardiovascular and circulatory disorders, oesophageal cancer, pre-term birth complications, congenital anomalies, and aortic aneurysm.

It was via the process of writing to David Nicholson to request a meeting to discuss the possibility of a Department of Health analysis of Dr Phillip Lee MP's hospital plan that I chanced upon the deadly organisational species of a 'delegocracy'.

For all the government's tough talk of protecting the NHS, £2.2bn from the NHS budget was handed back to the Treasury in last week's budget. Ministers have let care standards slip as they obsess over an unnecessary reorganisation that's taken £3bn out of patient care when the frontline is making unprecedented savings.

Yesterday Andy Burnham stood before Parliament and, with incredible chutzpah, accused the government of failing to fully respond to the Francis report. This is, lest we forget, the report that he never wanted, about the NHS trust he so catastrophically recommended for Foundation Trust status.

Our research shows that the public often face a complex and convoluted system at a time when they need urgent care. Nearly 80% or respondents to our survey said they didn't feel safe relying on NHS out-of-hours care.

So if it is saving lives or preventing deaths that matter so much in this country - why haven't we had some high profile police investigations and a high profile trial after the 1200 or so deaths at the Mid Staffordshire, NHS, Foundation, Trust?

Ken Loach provides us with a timely reminder of a period in history when the needs and hopes of the British working class were the guiding light of government policy, resulting in the radical transformation of society and an economic recovery the like of which is desperately needed today.

Emergency medical treatment should of course always be provided to those who require it at the point of need without exception. Beyond that, entitlement to free healthcare is considerably more generous to visitors and short-term residents than is reciprocated for UK citizens abroad and our system is the most liberal, and lax, than anywhere else in the world.

Look at the year the NHS has just had. Strikes, pay freezes, pension contribution increases, redundancy, massive reorganisation, industrial action, reconfiguration and more. A tough year in anyone's book but the survey shows us that the majority of indicators were stable or improved.

The Prince's joke that the Philippines must be empty because half the population work for the NHS was hardly tactful, but it does highlight an important issue: a huge number of trained health professionals are leaving poor countries each year for wealthy ones.

Today NHS managers want to sell off part of the Whittington site, cutting almost 570 jobs to leave the hospital with reduced maternity services, ward closures and fewer beds for the elderly. Why cut funding for something which works? At what cost is the government saving costs?

In suggesting that the Philippines must be "half empty" on account of so many of its inhabitants working overseas, Philip has unwittingly stumbled upon an interesting topic with regards to immigration and women.

Already a quarter of British women and a third of under nine's are clinically obese and by 2050 this figure is predicted to have risen to accommodate over half of all British citizens, a reality our NHS could not support.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is the Sarah Palin of ailments; nobody takes it seriously... IBS is still a condition whose name is met with disinterest, an eye roll and sometimes a snort of derision; and that's just from the doctors.